Blood and Treasure_An Urban Fantasy Novel

by J. A. Cipriano

  Luckily for this guy, I didn’t want to meet Renee with some kid’s blood fresh on my hands, regardless of whether he was trying to kill me or not.

  “Had enough?” I asked, though all he did was scream in response. “Yeah,” I decided. “You’ve had enough.”

  I waved my hand and let the energy dissipate. He looked up at me, burned and reeling, as he crawled backward.

  “It’s all right,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re a vampire. You’ll heal quick.”

  “He’s yours!” douche vamp said, crawling toward the door. “You want him so bad, you deal with him yourself!”

  He looked back up at the ceiling, at the shadows that covered pieces of it.

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked, walking toward him.

  I felt a weight come crashing down on me in response. It knocked me down, sending my ass crashing to the floor. I felt the weight move from my stomach-the point of impact- and landed with a thud on my chest.

  “He was talking to me,” a familiar voice growled at me.

  Looking, I saw a diminutive figure staring back at me. Oblong head, hooved feet, elongated claws, spider eyes, and rows of sharp teeth that seemed maddeningly ready to tear my throat out.

  Gary growled at me as I struggled to catch my breath, to make sense of this.

  “I’m about to make you wish you never came here, Roy Boy.”

  9

  To say that things haven’t gone as I thought they might since returning would be more than an understatement. For starters, my maybe former girlfriend had knocked me out with the tip of a magic sword she had no business wielding. My brother had taken my mouth away in an effort to verify my identity, then I’d found out I’d be gone for a little longer than the two weeks I’d expected (seven years longer to be exact). A bit later, I’d found out that the people I cared about most in the world were working for my greatest enemies, and now my best friend wanted to rip my throat out with his teeth.

  So, you know, I was a little hurt at rude welcoming I'd received so far.

  “Gary,” I stammered, looking up at my friend. “Gary, what are you doing?”

  Gary swung at me, an anger on his face that, up to this point, I had never seen directed at me. Even back when we’d first met, when I’d saved him from that horrible coven hell bent on sacrificing him, he hadn’t looked like this. In fact, the first thing he did when I’d sprung him from the room they were holding him in was make a joke.

  Something about being trapped with his own farts if memory serves.

  The Gary of that day and a hundred others which followed looked a million miles away now. He was stern. His features were heavy, and his eyes were focused and bloodthirsty.

  “You on drugs or something, dude?” I asked, throwing my head back and narrowly missing the sharp talons at the ends of his fingers. I felt a rush of air as he swiped past me before a jolt of pain shot through me as my head smashed against the floor. “Stop this!” I muttered, my hand reaching toward the back of my head to rub it.

  “What’d you do?” he asked, his voice still a growl in the deep part of his throat. “How’d you get passed Scott’s spell? You synthesize some blood or something? Or maybe you already had some. Roy boy wasn’t very particular about where he left his fluids laying around if you catch my drift.”

  “Hey!” I responded. I definitely did catch his drift, and while it might have been accurate, it definitely wasn’t welcome.

  “Maybe you had some of his DNA on hand, and you used it to make a cloaking spell, to make yourself look like him for whatever magical shit show spell Scott’s been conjuring up for all the imposters.”

  “All the imposters?” I asked, blinking hard and watching the way Gary’s claws still seemed to be ready to take a vital chunk out of my neck. “Someone’s pretending to be me? Who the fuck would ever want to be me?”

  Having spent seven years in Hell, I thought the question more than fair.

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” Gary snarled. “You’re about to utter your last words. DO you really want them to be about how big of a dumbass you are?” He lifted his hand and readied to strike. “You’d be better off to just drop the act and the disguise. At least then the Astra coven will be able to identify you and give whatever poor bastards are unlucky enough to call you family a chance to bury you. Otherwise, you go on the ash heap with the rest of them.”

  My body tensed as I took in his words. “You’ve been killing people?” I asked, leveling a gaze at him. “You don’t do that, Gary. You don’t kill people.”

  “Shows you what you know,” he said, pulling back the pieces of his face where lips should be to showcase his fangs again. “I’ve been deadly as poison since before I could walk.”

  “There was no before you could walk,” I scoffed, looking at my friend with confusion and a little panic running through me. “You came out of the womb literally running. You told me that a hundred times; smiled like some idiot because you thought it was so impressive. And you’ve never killed a soul. You couldn’t sleep for a week after I rented Taken because you were so afraid Liam Neeson was going to come running in during the middle of the night to show off his ‘particular set of skills.’”

  Gary blinked a few times in quick succession, his hand still arched in the air, ready to come down on me.

  “Who have you been talking to?” he asked through clenched fangs.

  “Awful people mostly,” I responded, shrugging. “The Benefactor, the guy who would stop at nothing to kill Renee and rip open a portal to our world, turns out he’s my good for nothing father, and he somehow turned Hell into a beach.” I shook my head. “So yeah. There’s that.”

  Gary blinked again, his raised hand starting to falter. “I don’t- Wait, seriously?”

  “Seriously!” I answered. “And there’s this woman named Sadie. She’s got this really relaxing voice, and she comes off like she wants to help you out, but I get the feeling she’s not so great.”

  “She cute?” Gary asked. Then, realizing how much he’d let his guard down, his eyes narrowed, and he pushed his claws right up against my neck, nearly piercing the skin and drawing blood. For as many times as Gary had nipped me playing around with those things, I’d never realized just how dangerous they were until now.

  “You’re a liar!” he shouted. “All of you are liars! You just want to get close to her. You just want to trick us!” So no, I’m not going to listen to this anymore. I don’t care that Scott’s spell didn’t work, and I don’t care that Renee let you out of those chains. You’re walking around pretending to be my dead best friend, and that’s not cool with me. So I’m going to give you one more chance to take that face off. Otherwise, I’m cutting it off.” He bared his fangs yet again. “So what do you have to say for yourself?”

  I stared at him for a long moment, scanning my brain and trying to come up with something that would convince my best friend that I was who I claimed to be. I could use magic, sure. But it would take longer for me to power up then it would for him to stick me like a pig. That wouldn’t work. I needed to appeal to him, to make him see the truth. How could I do that though?

  The answer came to me all at once, the one word I could utter which would put an end to all of this nonsense.

  So, with a quickly relaxing body and a new smile on my face, I uttered that word.

  “Pineapple,” I said simply.

  “What did you just say?” Gary asked, instinctively pulling back from me. Back in the day, when Gary and I were massaging the lumps out of our partnership, I thought it might be a good idea to lay some boundaries. Whenever a situation got too rough or intense, I’d mutter a word that let Gary know as much. Whenever he heard that word, he knew-without question- we were in too deep, and we needed to haul ass back to safety as quickly as our very different sized legs would carry us.

  He’d just heard that word one more time, and it was freaking him out.

  “You heard me, Gary,” I answered. “I said pineapple. This entire thing
is pineapple. So get the hell up off me, would you?”

  “I never said that to anybody,” he answered, almost absentmindedly. “I haven’t even thought it in years. Even if you were something capable of reading my mind, you wouldn’t find it in there.”

  “If I was capable of reading your mind, I’d no doubt come out of the situation mentally destroyed. Some things you can’t unsee. Though maybe I’d know why you smell like fish,” I said, crinkling my nose at him.

  “It was Halibut day,” he responded softly, his mouth turning downward.

  “Ugh, halibut,” I said. “It’s like the-”

  “White trash of fish,” he finished, looking up at me. “Roy? Roy, is that really you?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” I answered, thankful he was starting to believe me. “Now would you get your fish stained claws off of my neck please? I’ve been through enough today already, what with Abram’s creaky ass making threats.”

  “He’s just- he’s-” Gary never finished the thought though. Instead, he flung his arms around my neck and hugged me so tightly, he threatened to cut off my air supply.

  “I’m happy to see you too, bud,” I croaked out. “But can you give a guy some oxygen, for God’s sake?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he said, pulling away from me. “I wouldn’t have tried to kill you if I’d have known that you were- you know- you.” He shook his head. “It’s just, there have been so many people trying to use your face to get to her. Everyone knows you were close. They all know she loved you. So they think they can convince her that you’ve come back, then maybe they can use her, use what she can do, ya know?”

  “What who can do?” I asked, shaking my head. “You’re talking about Renee? What can she do?” My mind flickered back to the moments before I threw myself into that magical tear. Renee had changed. She was something different. I never got to the bottom of it because there wasn’t time. It seemed like it was going to get to the bottom of me now though. Whatever she was though, it was important enough that people pretended to be me to get near her. It made my blood trickle up a few degrees hotter. The fact that people would use what we had- what we were- to get near her- was like the worst sort of crime. It felt like someone had reached into my memories and tainted them with their grubby little shapeshifting fingers. “What happened Gary? What happened to Renee?”

  “Oh Roy boy,” he answered. “We’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about.”

  10

  I moved quickly alongside Gary as we walked through the hall where he had attacked me and out into the living area of what I now saw to be a great house. Twin sets of winding staircases twirled upward in the center of the room, jutting up so high toward a near chapel-like roof, that I could barely see where they joined at the top or where they led to.

  A long table sat in the center of the room. I’d have called it a dining room table had it been in the actual dining room. As it was, it just seemed to confirm that a shit ton of people either lived in this huge mansion or frequented it enough to warrant places to sit.

  Symbols etched into the otherwise flawless oak walls told me the Astra coven (or, at least part of it) called this place home. Their handiwork was everywhere, runes meant to convey healing, protection, strength, wisdom. Hell, there was probably one for minty fresh breath carved into the bathroom wall should I have cared to run and look.

  As it was though, my attention was focused on one thing, and it had nothing to do with those damned witches.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me what happened to Renee,” I huffed as Gary kept pace with me. Walking with him felt as normal as anything had since my return to this world. Things weren’t exactly the same as when I’d left. Though imps age much slower than human beings, and as such, Gary’s physical differences were much less pronounced than that of Scott and Abram, there were still some noticeable shifts in my friend.

  His voice was deeper, more full of authority. His steps were surer and less light, and his claws seemed even longer and sharper than they had been seven years ago. Though that might have something to do with the fact that they were almost inside of my throat just seconds ago.

  The most telling thing about this though, the thing that let me know things had changed without Gary even uttering a word about it, was the fact he was walking at all. There was a time when my imp friend would have rather rode on my shoulder than walked alongside me. There was something different going on with him now. His aura was more intense, his person more deliberately separate.

  It was as though the past time served as a growing experience for him. My wisecracking best friend didn’t need me to get him from A to B anymore. He was more than capable of doing it himself. Perhaps he even preferred it.

  “I have to show you, Roy. It’s a little more complicated than just telling you and letting you see her. There’s a reason she freed you from a distance, a reason she hasn’t shown you her pretty face since she kicked your ass in the alley.”

  “She didn’t kick my ass,” I blustered. “I just sort of woke up, and she was standing over me with that sword and armor and crap.” I shook my head. “Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m sort of a badass. Not that I’d have actually hit her or anything.”

  “That’s cute, Roy boy,” Gary chuckled. “Real cute. Our girl isn’t exactly the way you remember her. She’s changed a little. We all have.”

  “I can see as much,” I answered, looking Gary over again. “I mean, have you seen my brother’s hair?”

  “I know,” Gary groaned. “It’s like he’s trying to be the ugliest version of himself possible. It’s ridiculous. I was going to talk him out of it, but you know how much I enjoy watching people humiliate themselves.”

  “I do know that.” I smiled. “I’m glad to see some things haven’t changed.”

  “Some things, but not everything,” Gary answered wistfully. “Which is a fancy way of telling you that Renee could, without a doubt, kick your scrawny demon ass.”

  “Without a doubt?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “She wouldn’t even have to tense a muscle.” He shrugged. “It’s nothing personal, Roy boy. It’s just that if you were Batman, she’d be Superman. And I don’t mean in the whole ‘maybe Batman could beat Superman if the moon was just right, and he had ten years of prep’ way. No I mean, Superman throwing Batman’s entire planet into the sun because he can do that shit.”

  “I think you’re being dramatic,” I answered, barely resisting the urge to laugh. “I remember Renee pretty well, bro. I thought about her more than once while I was being held captive. She was a tough cookie, and she could definitely hold her own, but you’re expecting me to believe that not only supernatural creatures with the ability to make themselves look like me have been falling all over themselves to trick her into helping them, but that she’s Godzilla on steroids?” I shook my head. “She’s just an attorney.”

  “She hasn’t been an attorney in seven years, Roy,” Gary answered, looking up at me. “You haven’t been a cop for just about that long either, by the way. We tried to cover for you for a bit, told your boss you had lupus. He saw through it after you took the entire spring off. So you ended up forfeiting your badge.” He shrugged. “Also, you’re legally dead. So maybe the whole badge thing isn’t as big a deal as I made it out to be.”

  “I’d have definitely led with the dead thing if I were you,” I answered, my mind churning through all the stuff he’d just said. Renee loved being an attorney. It was at the crux of who she was. It was a defining piece of her identity. If she gave it up, then it meant she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. My father had stolen so much. He’d taken seven years of my life. He’d taken time I could have spent building a life with the woman I loved, and now he’d taken my life’s purpose too. All I wanted to do was help people, to make this damned rock a better place than it was when I was born onto it.

  He’d had different plans for me though. He’d sent me back here as a mercenary, a kil
ler sent to clear a path for him to come and raze this place to the ground.

  Worse than that, he wasn’t giving me a choice. I could either do as he asked or watch as the people I loved were killed and delivered to him.

  Still, that begged a certain question. If Renee was so powerful, maybe the nightmare monster wouldn’t be an issue for her.

  “Gary, there’s something coming,” I said, letting the urgency I felt color my tone. “When my father sent me back here, he did so with some troubling information. A nightmare creature, the only one left in existence-”

  “Is coming here to kill her. Yeah, I figured there was some big baddy you came back to stop. It’s sort of your M.O., bro.” He glared up at me. “And you want to know if your girl is strong enough to fight it off?”

  Well, that was one of the things I wanted to know. Also, I wanted to know what my girl had become exactly, how she could do the things I was being told she could do, and if she was even my girl anymore at all. I opened my mouth, but closed it quickly. The answer loomed over me, too heavy to even let the words come out.

  Seven years was a long time, after all. I’d settle for the answer to the question Gary answered for now though. So I nodded.

  “I would say yes, but what do I know?” he sighed. “You should ask her yourself.”

  He pointed to the spiraling staircase.

  “She’s at the top, but be careful.”

  “Pretty tall,” I answered, walking toward it.

  “Well, yeah. There’s that,” Gary said. Just then, I heard an earth-shaking growl sound from somewhere high above me, from somewhere on those steps. “There’s also that.”

  “What in fuck’s sake?” I scoffed.

  “You’ve sort of got to earn an audience with Renee these days, at least the first time. It kind of stops those who are unworthy from wasting her time. I’m not sure what that thing is. The trials are always changing, but I do know one thing. If you ever plan on seeing Renee again, you’re going to have to get past it, and you’re going to have to do it alone.”